Agreed. It's absolutely ridiculous that the restriction is in place. I understand the need to remove the ability to be able to farm for drops there, but don't limit the players (us) from returning to a really great place, which is also very unique might I add. I'm not sure what the thought process was behind this decision.…
I am having the same issues and multiple friends do too. People that are online, are shown as offline in the friends-list, and vice versa. Staying in one instance seems to 'freeze' the list, and switching instances seems to only update it once before freezing again.
Got some sweet headshots of various friends. Also made some quality postcards with extremely professional filters (/sarcasm) for another friend that wasn't in the game for a few weeks.